


Ready

by aptasi



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Cuddling, Dare, F/M, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, pillowtalk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-25 19:55:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30094320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aptasi/pseuds/aptasi
Summary: Neither of them ever did figure out how to back down, and they were very touch starved indeed.
Relationships: Moiraine Damodred & Lan Mandragoran, Moiraine Damodred/Thom Merrilin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4





	1. I agree

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my version of the Tear Moiraine/Thom arc that starts from the premise that both of them are touch starved and desperately want a hug, It contains a whole load of cuddling and enthusiastic attempts to write sappy romantic tropes (while also trying to keep things in character). 
> 
> Rating is for an eventual sex scene (partially obscured), as well as discussions of past sexual history (including some that was traumatizing)

Moiraine Damodred bloody Aes Sedai had to be the most infuriating woman ever created. An Aes Sedai, a Damodred, and now a bloody war hawk. Could the woman not understand that Rand needed to consolidate power? One does not win the hearts of men by conquering and failing to govern. 

It should probably bother Thom less that Moiraine Sedai seemed completely indifferent to whether she had the hearts of men. 

These arguments he had with her had to stop, and not just because he hadn’t done this much angry shouting with a woman since Morgase. No it was because he didn’t like making Moiraine angry, and spending half the time wondering if she was genuinely distressed was not a viable political tactic. Bloody woman. 

“I told you. I want to see Rand alive to fight the last battle, just like you.” 

“No I want to see him alive.” Thom snapped. “The problem is that you see no difference.” 

“We have the most similar goals of anyone in this entire stone.” The Aes Sedai gestured with wide hands. 

The Gleeman crossed his arms. “Sure woman, and the most disparate methods.” 

Moiraine shook her head.“I do not understand why you will not even negotiate with me.” 

“Fine.” Thom growled. “I’ll tell you why Moiraine. You’re an Aes Sedai.” That wasn’t even in the neighborhood of the truth.

“And thus bound by the First Oath. I am speaking directly to you.” 

“Oh, as though I wouldn’t know that you have as many ways around that thing as there are stars in the sky.” 

"Then how am I to get the merest shred of confidence from you, Thom. How am I to earn the beginnings of your trust?"

He snorted. "Sleep in my bed."

For once, she was silent. 

Thom’s mind caught up with his mouth. "I didn't mean like that woman. I mean I wont trust you unless you trust me and I don't know any way an Aes Sedai can show her guard down except to fall asleep” He really needed to stop letting his quiet thoughts become his spoken ones. That was another problem he hadn’t had to this extent since Morgase, come to think of it. 

Moiraine took a slow breath. "So be it."

Thom’s mouth was gaping. "You aren't seriously agreeing to…” 

"I might have preferred the other interpretation." Moiraine said. "You have correctly ascertained that shows of trust are rather difficult for me, but if that is your condition, I agree. I trust you will be alone if I want to have this done tonight.” 

Thom had never in his life had a bluff so thoroughly called before.  
\----

"It is not as if this bothers me." Moiraine declared. 

Lan grunted.

It is Thom, Gaidin, he might try to get some Daes Dae'mar advantage out of it, but it is not as if he will murder me in his bed or do something to my body against my will."

"Not against your will, no."

Moiraine shot him a glare. "This is political."

" You're doing this because you're riled."

"Gaidin."

"He won't collaborate with you, and that bothers you too much." Lan said. "You're not Berelain, to seduce a man on the first setback."

"I am not seducing him."

He snorted. "Then why are you over-analyzing what to wear?"

Moiraine gave him a exemplary Aes Sedai glare.

"Be safe, keep the bond connected unless you're doing something that would scandalize a Domani not just a Cairhienin and try to keep the lovesick emotions to a minimum. Feels like having a flock of excitable songbirds in my head."

Moiraine folded her arms and tried to stare him down. "Hypocrite."

"And have fun." Lan said smiling like a very amused wolf.


	2. Hoop skirt

“Good evening, Thom,” Moiraine declared, all serene, sweeping into his room like she owned the place. 

“Good evening.” He said, determined not to be an awkward mess while the bloody woman was acting like nothing was out of the ordinary. “You left it late.” 

“Did you want people to witness this?” Moiraine asked. 

He wasn’t entirely sure to be fair. The only certain thing about this was no one would ever believe them. “You’ll have the bed, like we agreed, and I’ll…” 

“You know, Thom, when I agreed to your conditions, I assumed you would lie down next to me.” 

She could at least have let him finish what he was saying. “The bed’s small.”

Moiraine shrugged. “So am I.” 

He swallowed. 

“Or did the great master Gleeman make a halfway boast.” She smirked. 

Thom huffed into his mustache. “I don’t push women to do things they don’t want to do. But if you’ve got no problem with this, Moiraine, well neither have I.” 

“As you say then,” She countered. “Do you have a preferred side of the bed?” 

It was a servants' quarters bed. It only had one bloody side. “You’re going towards the wall because I’m not having you getting up at night and wandering the room to sift through anything that interests you.” 

Moiraine squinted at him. “Fine with me.” 

Why was the woman so flaming attractive when she was being impossible? “So do you usually go to sleep now?”

The woman scoffed. “Of course not. I must work another hour at least.” 

Now that was interesting. Maybe she’d brought some work he could sneak a look at. “Oh really? Work on what?” 

She pulled a copy of the Karaethon Cycle out of one of her elaborate skirt pockets. 

Thom strained himself trying to get a good look at it. Where had Moiraine gotten one of those? He'd never heard of anyone sane producing pocket tracks of The Prophecies of the Dragon. It looked like a schoolboy reader, which was absurd for something like this. Also what translation was... oh an original old tongue of course, he was a fool for wondering.

“I need to read through some of this again. Try to think more originally about it. I am stuck in derivative exegesis even on matters that have clearly diverged from the scholarly consensus.” 

There wasn’t much decent light at the moment. “If your eyes are tired, I could perform it for you.” 

“The Karaethon cycle? I doubt a simple Gleeman gets much call for that.” She observed.

Fool. “Special interest.” He muttered. 

She chuckled under her breath. 

“It’s a real offer. Take it or leave it, woman.” 

“Very well.” She pointed in the text. “You know from here?” 

He did indeed. Now if he could just stop puffing out his chest like a flaming troupe player crossed with a mating robin and actually pay attention to the woman’s reactions, the little that she showed, he might actually get some useful intelligence out of this.   
______

Moiraine should have thought to try this ages ago. True, nearly everyone else believed Thom Merrillin’s simple Gleeman act, but Moiraine knew about the Grey Fox and should have suspected that his Karaethon Cycle presentation would be inspired. It had given her so much to think about. She might have to completely retool some of her plans based on things that had lept to mind watching his performance. 

Judging by the expression on Thom Merrilin’s face he was rethinking that entire section too. Indeed it was possibly he was using her reactions to fuel his ideas. Perhaps he was trying to learn about her as well. 

Well now that wouldn’t do. She could not have him gaining more from this strange little event than her. Moiraine kept her body and face perfectly still as she wondered what this showy little test actually was. Thom Merrilin knew Cairhienin women well enough to know that this would make her uncomfortable, but that could hardly be the only point. Moiraine was hardly going to back down from an important political point just because the man maneuvered her into a suggestive situation. Besides, he seemed no more prepared than she was. She would have to keep considering. The Grey Fox did nothing by accident. 

He was staring at her now, and she made a point of returning the eye contact, making it clear she wasn’t afraid. Moiraine never felt afraid of things within her control. There was no point to that. 

“Are you ready to turn in?” Thom asked calmly. 

She almost said no. It would be easy to demand another passage and then another. If she played it right, she would barely have to spend any time actually in the bed. However, Moiraine was exhausted. She had stayed up most of the previous night as well, and if she did not at least try to spend some of the night resting, she would not be at her best during the day. Also, she suspected the buildup to this was going to be an interesting process.

“Well.” Thom Merrilin said gruffly. 

Moiraine smiled. “Yes, I am ready to prepare to go to bed.” Then she, with eyes still fixed on him, sat down on the bed and took off her slippers and stockings. 

The man watched her with an odd expression, though he surely did not expect her to wear either of those to bed. 

She must stay ahead of Thom Merrilin and keep him as the one reacting. Moiraine did not break her eye contact as she started unlacing her corset. 

“That’s not part of the….” 

“You expect me to sleep in a full gown? ” She had deliberately worn a multi-layered skirt, with a hard-edge farthingale, skirts with excessive use of gathers, a layered cone compose of many nesting hoop skirts, no less than three kinds of laces, two of which ended in bows, and other cumbersome elements to make sure that was impractical. Moiraine was not about to let Thom Merrilin forget that his condition, his, had been for an Aes Sedai to warm his bed. This was not her idea. He could watch her in the shift or she could drag every last hoop skirt into bed with her but she was not going to do him the favor of wearing a peasant dress to bed so he could avoid what he had started. 

“Well no…” 

Never, ever, be the unbalanced on in Daes Dae’mar “Very well, then I usually sleep in my shift, if you don’t mind.”   
\---------  
In her shift. Bloody light, Moiraine was going to lay down beside him in just her shift. People took off clothing to go to sleep. Thom had no idea how he’d managed to forget this very basic fact, but Moiraine wearing more fabric than Morgase at her coronation had certainly driven that home. He'd never seen her in this dress before, but apparently this was what she was going to wear to take off, enough skirts to be almost as wide as the room. Take off. That meant he would be in...

"I usually just…" his ears were probably flaming red. 

"Wear or do not wear what you want." Moiraine said musically. "It is not as if I have to prove my honor in court."

Had anyone had to prove virginity legally outside of the Sun Palace in the last century? Sometimes, Moiraine seemed like she was hiding her identity with the skill of of the Daes Dae'mar master, and sometimes it seemed like she was setting up a Illuminator display over it.

"Do you mean to make me afraid?" Moiraine inquired musically.

"No." he said "Just giving you a chance to say we should both put some clothes on."

She laughed. "Are you uncomfortable with me in my shift? I am not sure how I would manage the gown but I can try…"

"I suppose that depends. How do you feel about me noticing," he swallowed, "how good you look in your shift?"

Moiraine met his eyes with something that felt to him like pure nerve. "That is not a problem."

Thom would never have expected that two people could have a standoff about taking off clothes. "After you, then."


	3. Shoulders

“Would you help me with my gown?” Moiraine asked. 

For a moment she thought the man was going to turn her ‘you set the terms of the challenge so you deal with it’ back on her, but he nodded and stepped behind her. 

She took slow deep, on purpose breaths, not too fast and not too slow, as he dealt with her bodice, then her outer shirts, then her farthingale, hoops and petticoats. Moiraine reminded herself that she could have worn a riding dress. She would not have needed help with this if she had worn a riding dress. Well, she supposed she did not strictly need help now. She could have used the power for extra grip. That was what she had done to get into this contraption, Lan having tired years ago of acting like a lady's maid. Still, this was better. Anything that kept the man off balance had its advantages, practical and otherwise.

“You have lovely shoulders.” Thom Merrilin said gruffly, behind her. 

“Thank you.” 

She was about to start wondering about that compliment, did the man really intend to throw her off with a remark on shoulders why those were hardly even sexual and she wasn’t that Cairhienin, when Thom’s arm brushed against her back. 

It was not much. At three quarters of the way up, it wasn’t close to anything particularly scandalous, and Moiraine would stake money, not anything important but at least something, that Thom Merrilin had not done that on purpose. He was just reaching to the side to put her petticoats down, and she was there. That was all.

Yet it was overwhelming. Moiraine hadn’t hadn’t had anyone’s hands on her directly since immediately after the battle to take the stone. Even them Lan hadn’t kept in contact with her long, just enough to carry her for medical attention and then to rest. It had been a long time, since she stayed at Adeleas and Vandene's place perhaps, since someone had touched her on purpose for something not medical. 

Moiraine had done her best to get used to it, to ignore the constant lonely aching of her skin, the sensation that she was a star flung into farthest space, the ever present slight ringing not in her ears but in her entire self. She had her methods for it. She wore tight clothing and used heavy blankets even in the heat, to give herself imitative compression. She made friends with the cats, who alone out of all beings seemed to instinctively like her and her power, at whichever place they were staying. Doing Aldieb's upkeep herself when there was time for it was helpful also, but it was almost always a strain on her schedule lately. Sometimes, when she was really having trouble with it, she would even lie down with her arms around some of her saddlebags and pretend she was back in her novice rooms where she never had to sleep alone. Lan tended to get a very mocking affect in the bond when he caught her at that, though. So she tried to avoid the behavior whenever possible and with ta'veren constantly around that she needed to continuously make an authoritative impression on, well the practical measures to deal with those empty feelings scarcely had the capacity to keep her whole, let alone keep her comfortable. 

So when Thom’s hand brushed on her back Moiraine’s entire mind jerked, like a horse throwing a shoe, off whatever she had it doing and disobediently grasped onto the notion. Someone was touching her. Thom was going to put his arms around her. 

Moiraine pulled herself together. Thom was touching her because neither of them would back down from a challenge in the context of a political dare. Nothing else. 

While she was thinking that, Thom made a shimmying motion behind her and when she turned around the man was standing there in his small clothes. 

"You have very nice shoulders too." She said, making sure to get the inflection on her voice pitch perfect, teasing but not immature. She liked good shoulders and Thom Merrilin had them, likely from tumbling (she blushed, the man somehow had her mind making entendres now?) and holding his instruments. A shame they were hidden under that cloak most of the time. 

Thom Merrilin actually blushed along with her. It was a little endearing. 

“You are sure this does not discomfort you?” Moiraine said in her best Aes Sedai, in control voice. She was the one asking Thom about his comfort because she was the master of this situation. Nothing discomfited her.

“I am.” Thom said. “Are you? I’m not used to women entering my bed on a dare.” 

“I know you will not do anything to me against my will.” Moiraine declared, trying not to dwell on how Lan had pointed out with emphasis her inclusion of the end of that statement earlier.

“Glad I’ve made at least that much impression of my character.” Thom said. “Rather the bare minimum.” 

“The bare minimum is not to be a darkfriend.” Moiraine corrected. “And I am the one saying we should be friends. You are the one who disagrees. You do not think as well of my character as I do of yours. Which leaves me to determine your reason for this condition." 

Thom’s eyes did an odd flicking motion. He had caught that she was swapping allies for friends now. Moiraine needed to get a grip on her word choice before she made a really significant error. 

"You could for example." Moiraine said, keeping her tone steady "Make some claim about what we're doing, worded in a way challenging to deny. You could imply to the world that you had enjoyed the charms of my body, seeking to embarrass me.” 

He grunted.

"But that Thom Merrilin would be foolishness. You would reveal yourself uncouth in front of everyone, which Rand would likely not appreciate, and I simply would not find being known as your lover all that humiliating. 

The man had the gall to gawk.

"Perhaps not expedient." she said. "But if my actual history will not embarrass me your theoretical lies certainly can not."

"So, you have been with someone lower than a Gleeman?" His tone was inscrutable, which was infuriating. What did that inflection on those syllables mean? 

Moiraine was not sure how or if she wanted her foretold husband and current opponent to ask about her history, but she was not about to demonstrate hesitation in the face of it. "I know that you mean in social station, but the ones I am ashamed of were merchants and nobility."

He was giving her a very strange look.

"By contrast there was a wheelwright who was perfectly adequate." Moiraine's mind tried to get a handle on the fact that she was rambling, which she managed at least without mentioning Tairen fishing families. “Now if you will give me a hand into bed, I do believe practicality says I should go first.” 

Her mind nearly rebelled again as Thom, quite literally, gave her his hand into bed. Light, she was going to need to slip out and go dancing, or else argue with Lan about touch as a need again and try to bargain for some contact, a quick hug, something. She felt like she had been lying in the Aiel waste for a week and someone was dripping water onto her tongue. 

They settled into position with a tiny strip of mattress empty between them. 

It was impractical. Her shoulder blades were jamming hard into the wall. Thom looked like he had a quarter or more of his body hanging off the tiny bed. 

“Really, Thom, this is ridiculous. One of us is going to injure ourselves like this.” 

The man made a sound she couldn’t quite interpret, and then they both moved a little. This was much more comfortable. Nothing forceful against her back, and it looked like Thom was much less likely to fall. However the space between them was considerably closed. Moiraine's shin was touching his leg slightly and his arm was winding around and holding the pillow over her head. Her head was not right against his chest, but almost to it. 

If earlier had been drops of moisture while dying of thirst in the Aiel waste, this was like holding a whole glass of cold water against her lips and telling her she would get sick if she drank it.  
____

Thom woke up, he thought on his own, but once awake he immediately realized Moiraine was in distress.

Moiraine. Thom shook her harder, trying to rouse her. "Moiraine, wake up woman "

She was breathing hard and shaking small, like shivers. Her eyes glinted in the little light as she opened them and looked at him like something small but feral. 

"What is it? He asked. Are you hurt?

It happens." She said. "I have nightmares. Not dark nightmares like the boys. My own, made inside the shields. It wakes me. And then I go back to sleep." Even with the uneven breath, her voice was matter of fact about it, like she was discussing an unavoidable fact of life.

Something about the resignation in Moiraine's practical tone made Thom feel sad and bent out of shape. "Would you like a hug?" Thom asked. 

She squinted at him. Thom could see, or thought he could, that Moiraine's eyes had tears in them, but he would bet anyone aside from Mat Cauthon that she wasn't about to let them be shed.

"For the nightmares." He clarified. 

"Yes, I would."

He slid towards her, closing that tiny distance they’d put between them, and pulled her in. She made a strange sound as their bodies came in contact, fear or pain leaving her body most like. Poor girl. With the kind of things she had seen her nightmares must be true horrors. "Whatever's chasing you. It's not going to catch you tonight." He said into her shoulder. 

"I apologize..." She muttered, dabbing her eyes efficiently on the blanket. He noticed she did not try to leave the embrace though, so he rubbed her back which made her make the sound again. "Truly I thought your snoring would keep me awake."

"And it didn't?"

"No. I actually find it rather pleasant" she mused. He could feel her breath on his shoulder. "In a kind of rusty saw sort of way."

He chuckled. She felt nice cuddled up to him too... all warm and soft, but this was reminding him of a fact about himself that he had tried his best to willfully forget. "Moiraine?"

"Mmmm..." It sounded like she was drifting off again. Her breath was evening. 

"I get nightmares too. We'll most like be up a few more times tonight."

That did not seem to bother her. "Sleeping close to me will shield your dreams."

"I think these are my own too." He said. 

"Perhaps we should just stay close like this " Moiraine's musical voice had slipped into a comfortable adagio tempo as she drifted off. "To save time."

That suited him just fine. And, sure enough, when he woke from his own dream of bodies and blood, having Moiraine there wasn't half bad


End file.
